4 police in US arrested over treatment of Immigrants

this Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2010 file photo, East Haven police vehicles are seen outside the police department in East Haven, Conn. The FBI on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, arrested four East Haven police officers on conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges following an investigation into possible civil rights violations. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AP) — The FBI on Tuesday arrested four U.S. police officers on charges that they assaulted illegal immigrants and created false reports to cover up abuses in a Connecticut suburb where a federal investigation found life was made miserable for Hispanics.

The police officers assaulted individuals while they were handcuffed, unlawfully searched Latino businesses and harassed and intimidated people who tried to investigate or report officers’ misconduct, according to the federal indictment.

Federal authorities began investigating police in 2009 in East Haven. Latino business owners said rough treatment by police drove many newcomers from Mexico and Ecuador to leave the city.

“In simple terms, these defendants behaved like bullies with badges,” said Janice Fedarcyk, assistant director of the New York office of the FBI.

The U.S. Department of Justice last month said the police department engaged in a pattern of discrimination against Latino residents and that their probe was complicated by efforts to interfere with witnesses and by police silence.

Hispanic business owners welcomed the arrests, including Luis Rodriguez, an immigrant from Ecuador who had complained of police harassment at his grocery store.

“They should have to pay, not with many years, but enough to make an example of them. They should not abuse their power,” Rodriguez said. “All I ever wanted was to be left in peace.”

Officers Dennis Spaulding, David Cari and Jason Zullo and Sgt. John Miller, president of the police union, are charged with conspiracy, deprivation of rights and obstruction of justice.

Miller repeatedly slapped a man handcuffed in his car, while Spaulding threw a man to the ground and repeatedly kicked him while he was handcuffed, according to the indictment.

Zullo told Spaulding in a 2008 conversation quoted by the indictment referred to “persons who have drifted to this country on rafts made of chicken wings and are now residing” in East Haven.

Donald Cretella, Miller’s lawyer, said his client has been honored with awards and risked his life in shootouts.

“John Miller is a hero in East Haven,” he said. “He’s decorated. He’s a wonderful family man. Hopefully, we’ll clear his name.”

The indictment says Miller reported to a police department leader described as a co-conspirator who blocked efforts by the police commission to investigate Miller’s misconduct. That refers to Chief Leonard Gallo, according to his attorney, Jon Einhorn, who denied that Gallo blocked the investigation.

“It’s unfair that he is mentioned in this regard when he isn’t even indicted,” Einhorn said.

Mayor Joseph Maturo, who took office Nov. 19, recently reinstated Gallo as police chief. “I stand behind the police department,” Maturo said. “We have a great police department.”

Nearly half or a third of the drivers pulled over by certain police officers were Latino, and the number of Latinos pulled over by certain squads was “extraordinarily high,” said Roy Austin Jr., deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Latinos who were stopped for minor violations were subjected to harsher punishments, such as arrest or vehicle towing, than were non-Latinos.

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Associated Press writer Michael Melia in Hartford contributed to this report.